Public Accounts Committee on May 30th, 2006

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

A simple yes or no will suffice.

[John Morgan]

I very carefully consider any legal advice, sir, and I ensure that we take it under consideration. If we ignore legal advice, we do it at our own peril, especially when it comes to parliamentary legislation. We did take this advice.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Okay.

I'll come to you in a minute, Mr. Wiersema.

Mr. Rosenberg, were you aware of this legal opinion before it was delivered to the Treasury Board or to the Comptroller General?

[Morris Rosenberg]

Mr. Chair, could I explain the context of my involvement in this?

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I only asked if you were aware of it.

[Morris Rosenberg]

Yes, I was aware that a legal opinion had been requested.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Okay. Was it prepared by someone who had an accounting designation, as well as a legal designation?

[Morris Rosenberg]

No, it was prepared by a senior lawyer with long expertise in crown contracting and commercial law.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

But he had no accounting designation.

[Morris Rosenberg]

I don't believe he had an accounting designation.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Okay.

Mr. St-Jean and Mr. Morgan, you take the advice of a lawyer, and you are professional accountants. Is that right? You are supposed to be in that profession.

It's like I went to the doctor and said I feel sick. I don't like what the doctor tells me, so I get a lawyer to tell me what I should do. Is that right? Is that what you're trying to tell me? Did you accept a non-professional legal opinion to tell you, as a professional, how to record this stuff? Is that what happened?

[Charles-Antoine St-Jean]

If I may say so, we live in both worlds. Listen, this is a very important matter. We live in the world of accounting and in the world of parliamentary votes. Accounting tells us that we have to record it as a liability, and as a professional accountant, I would like to record it as a liability against the vote.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

So why didn't you?

[Charles-Antoine St-Jean]

I wasn't there to start with, sir.

And second, if I had legal advice telling me that you cannot charge it, what I would do, and that's what I told the Auditor General, is bring this kind of issue to the attention of the Auditor General so we could have a full debate at that time and not a year later.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Wiersema, you disagreed with the ultimate conclusion here. You said that this should have been a supplementary estimate request. When you left the Office of the Comptroller General, that was the position of the Comptroller General because that was your position.

Mr. St-Jean, when you followed Mr. Wiersema, did you change Mr. Wiersema's position?

[Charles-Antoine St-Jean]

No. I looked at the correspondence that was in the Comptroller General's file. There was a memo in the file that said the Comptroller General, or the acting Comptroller General, was not going to challenge the legal opinion. That memo has been shared with the Auditor General.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

When did the legal opinion come forward? What date was the legal opinion provided, Mr. Rosenberg?

[Morris Rosenberg]

I believe the legal opinion was provided somewhere around February 9 or 10.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Were you familiar with this legal opinion, Mr. Wiersema?

[John Wiersema]

Yes, I was, Mr. Chairman.

If I may, the present Comptroller General has made a couple of references to the fact that the legal opinion was accepted by the Comptroller General. I just wish to clarify that when I was the acting Comptroller General, I did not accept the legal opinion as a basis for determining proper accounting. It's a legal opinion. I accepted it as a legal opinion, but I did not accept it as the basis for proper accounting and for the decisions that subsequently flowed from it.

The other point, Mr. Chairman, is that the Comptroller General made reference to a document that indicated that I had accepted this legal opinion. I have not seen that document. I have no knowledge whatsoever of that document.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Is this legal opinion going to be made available to us?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I understand that it is, Mr. Williams. Perhaps we can clarify that right now.

[Charles-Antoine St-Jean]

If I may answer the question on the legal opinion, there have been discussions with the secretary and the Deputy Minister of Justice, and the opinions will be made available--both opinions, as a matter of fact. One is called the Pigeon legal opinion and the other one is the Besner legal opinion.

Before doing so, I would just like to put on the record that solicitor-client privilege applies to legal advice given by the Department of Justice to the Government of Canada. In all essential ways, it's the same privilege that applies to privileged communication--

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chairman.

I just asked a question. Are we going to get the legal opinion or are we not? I know about all this solicitor-client privilege. Are we going to get it or are we not?

[Charles-Antoine St-Jean]

If I may answer the--